The latest hope for turning people on to healthier food involves playing with people’s minds using social media.

Research from Aston University in Birmingham has found that “people following healthy eating accounts on social media for as little as two weeks ate more fruit and vegetables and less junk food”.

The key to this conversion were sham Instagram accounts where healthy food attracted many more “likes” than unhealthy foods.

There is previous research that found “positive social norms about fruit and vegetables increases individuals’ consumption”.

But who sits around talking at length about spinach?

Still, overall, participants who followed the healthy eating accounts (compared to a control group that followed an interior design account) ate “an extra 1.4 portions of fruit and vegetables per day and 0.8 fewer energy dense items, such as high-calorie snacks and sugar-sweetened drinks, per day”.

Is being cool the real motivation?

A new study from Flinders University argues that having a sense of belonging to a social group – and the sense of obligation that goes with it – could affect food choices.

That’s easily demonstrated with unhealthy foods, such as caffeine drinks and cheesy fries, that are popular with some young people.

And there are groups of young people who belong to groups where wellness is central to their identity.

What the Flinders researchers suggest is that this sense of belonging could nudge people toward choosing healthier options.

The key with this study was exploiting the ancient and complicated instinct we call ‘herd mentality’.

Is herd mentality a thing?

Herd mentality is based on the idea of safety in numbers – which can prove useful. For goats, starlings, deer and ancient man, herd mentality lowered the odds that you’d be eaten.  

Among teenagers, herd mentality usually involves adopting the same fashion, haircuts and music idols of the social group they want to belong to. All of which is transient.

Still, for people of all ages, being part of the herd (the bowling club or cycling group) amounts to social survival.

The Flinders study

This wasn’t a particularly strong experiment, but the results show how a kind of self-inflicted peer pressure can guide your choices.

The researchers enlisted 179 female university students, aged 18-32.

They were tasked with looking at a Facebook page. The page either pertained to their own university (the in-group) or a rival university (out-group).

The participants were charged with choosing a main, side, and dessert dish from an online menu. For some participants, it was made clear, via sham posts, that eating healthily was the norm (common practice).

For other participants, the norm was unhealthy food.

When participants ordered from their own university, and healthy food was the norm, they tended to order “a higher percentage of healthy items (especially in the desserts category) relative to those who viewed the unhealthy norm”.

Taking the healthy option, in the main, only occurred when participants ordered a meal from their own university’s cafe.

The attitude toward the menu at the rival university was largely indifference.

Professor Eva Kemps, from the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, was the corresponding author of the new paper. 

Kemps said: “When people are exposed to social norms on Facebook such as what others eat, they are more likely to be influenced by someone in the same group with them than by someone who isn’t. This builds on the age-old adage of the herd mentality.”

True. But a lot of herd behaviour is a performance, to secure your place in the group. In private, we tend to drop the social mask. Which might mean eating what you want when no one’s looking.